Safeguards approach at INB’s uranium enrichment plant

Having resumed the negotiations related to the safeguards approach for the commercial uranium enrichment plant of Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB) in December 2004, after the use of the method agreed upon between Brazil and the IAEA, which allowed to perform the initial verification of the design of the first cascade of the plant, a meeting was held on February 1 and 2 this year, where the various alternatives of the safeguards approach for the rest of the facility were discussed and short-term actions were agreed aiming at defining, as soon as possible, the general guidelines of such approach and, particularly, the possibility of adapting the system for visual access to the premises protected by the panels, the so-called bird’s eyes view, within the first cascade of the plant.

During April and May, the Brazilian national authority and the operator tested the adaptation of the bird’s eyes view system at the first cascade, so as to attain indirect visual access to the space protected by the panels. On April 28, a practical demonstration of the device was carried out at the cascade hall of the uranium enrichment plant, which was attended by representatives of the ABACC and the IAEA, and aimed at evaluating the information to be used for safeguards purposes. The meeting ended on April 29, at the headquarters of the National Nuclear Energy Commission, in Rio de Janeiro —when both the general guidelines of the safeguards approach for the whole plant and the particular procedures to be applied to the first module were defined, taking into account the promising results of the test performed.

The agreed philosophy does not require perimeter control, allows for a fast access to the cascade hall and for visual access to the process equipment, and maintains the feed and withdrawal station, the sampling points and other strategic spots under containment and surveillance. On the other hand, an aleatorily-based control has been foreseen over the mass balance (element and isotope), the separative work units and all the internal and external transfers of nuclear materials, as well as the collection of swipe samples inside the cascade hall and in other strategic spots.

In the particular case of the first module, indirect visual access to the space surrounded by the panels shall be provided by means of portable video cameras or digital photographs, whichever is considered more convenient, for the verification of the design in other important spots.